It’s an either/or world. The latest evidence is a series of articles making the rounds on mommy blogs. It’s yet another iteration of the modesty vs. responsibility battle that flares up and dies down without ever really going away. The latest round went like this:

One mother of sons pleads with girls to stop posting photos of themselves half-naked in sexy, come-hither poses. It makes it hard for boys to see you as anything other than sexual objects, she explains.

Is outrage! responds the blogging world, especially mothers of daughters. Why aren’t we telling the boys to take responsibility for their own behavior and their own brains? Why is it always up to the girls to hide so the boys can decide?

I have a different question. Why does it have to be one or the other? Why does it have to be either/or? What ever happened to both/and? I have boys and girls. I tell my girls that they need to pay attention to what they wear, both for their own safety and sense of self-respect, and so as not to make trouble for people they meet. And my husband tells my boys that they must respect women no matter what they wear; that somebody else’s dress or behavior, whether it’s intentional or clueless, is never an excuse for bad behavior on their part. Both/and.

Yeah, it’s a little more complicated than teaching people, “Just do X, and there will be no problem.” It really would be easier if we could just tell girls, “Cover up, missy. The end” or if we could just tell boys, “Do right, sonny. The end.” But we can’t do that. The world doesn’t work that way.

It sounds so bold and stirring to cry, “Girls should be able to walk down Broadway naked at midnight and not be in fear, because boys have been taught not to rape!” or “Boys should be able to walk down a beach at high noon and not have to bat an eye, because girls have been taught to dress and behave modestly!” but come on. We’re dealing with human beings here. No one deserves rape, and no one deserves to be tempted. But if we don’t want to be victimized -- and I'm talking about girls and boys here -- we can help ourselves out by taking personal responsibility, and help each other that way, too.

There is no one who simply reacts, without also making choices. There is no one who simply makes choices, without reacting to other people. It’s almost as if we’re all in this together.

This either/or problem doesn’t just turn up in modesty debates. Last time I wrote about feminism, we got a predictable spate of comments from aggrieved men saying, “If women would just be quiet and obedient and docile, they‘d get all the respect they can shake a stick at!” And there weren’t on this particular post, but I’ve seen my share of the equally predictable remarks from irritated women saying, “If men would just treat us with respect, we wouldn’t have to tear our shirts off and trash churches and whatnot!”

If these folks were my sons and daughters, I’d tell them, “The world doesn’t work that way.” You have to respect people who aren’t respectable. You have to do the right thing even when you won’t be respected for it. It’s not either/or. It’s not “won’t/until.” It’s both/and – and yes, that leads to everyone being a little bit dissatisfied. It leads to some people doing more work than others, and some people reaping rewards that they didn’t personally earn.

I understand the allure of either/or thinking. It makes life so much easier when you can identify the problem,and what do you know? It just so happens to lie in someone else. I do this all the time, in big matters and small. I tell myself I’d be much happier about folding my husband’s laundry if he’d just be more grateful. Well, probably he’d feel a little more grateful if he had folded laundry available a little more often. And so on. We could both do better, and then we’d both do better.

Feminism—
Last night my husband and I went to see Woody Allen’s new film “Blue Jasmine”. There was a preview of a film, shot in Saudi Arabia about a little girl who goes to great lengths to win a bicycle. Big deal right? Yes, big deal, because females riding bikes is frowned upon. I guess a bicycle seat is a titillating proposition in some parts of the world. We should be cheering for progress though because a woman directed (wrote?) the film, and she hasn’t been murdered for it yet.
It stuns me that *all* men in First World countries aren’t feminists. How can they not see the news, or trip on the evidence that women have been, and are still second class citizens all over the world.

Posted by anna lisa on Wednesday, Sep, 11, 2013 11:49 AM (EDT):

It must not have been The Silent Scream that I saw initially then, and I haven’t seen that film in decades, but I think at the end of the film there are photos of those late term babies in buckets that had been shown to me when I was about thirteen. the newer, high resolution ultrasounds would be even more traumatic to watch.
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My first brush with what I saw as grave, mind blowing injustice was when I was much younger. I was alone and one of those shows about starving children came on. That devastated me also. I was incredulous that God would allow such a thing, but in the midst of that stunning moment, I had one of the most profound experiences of God that I’ve ever had. As an adult, I have been able to flesh out the answer He gave me more clearly, but it is simply:
*********We must be the hands and feet and heart of God on Earth********

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Wednesday, Sep, 11, 2013 6:50 AM (EDT):

Well, Anna Lisa, I know you’ve heard my views on abortion before, so I won’t repeat them. But I will say that for me, too, it was some pro-life videos (or maybe slideshows?) that first showed me exactly what an abortion was—and made me realize I needed to stop calling myself “pro-life.”
I was 15 when they made our CCD class watch them. Neither of them was “Silent Scream” because that one didn’t come out until ‘84, but they were along the same lines. I watched the gruesome pictures and thought, where are all the women in whose bodies these babies had been growing? What was their story? Why weren’t they in this movie? They seemed like a big piece to leave out. I tried to imagine, what circumstances would make them decide to do such a gruesome thing? And then…I realized I could think of some reasons why they might have decided to do it, and then I also realized that I, too, would do what they did, in some situations. So in my deepest heart of hearts, I knew this: I was a woman who would do it, too. This was an incredible revelation, because it meant that I was excommunicated, latae sententiae. Just like that—I was out! So I stopped receiving communion, and started calling myself pro-choice. I had never even kissed a boy at that point—I was possibly the only virginal Catholic girl in history to decide I could no longer call myself a member of the church after viewing a couple of pro-life films.
My friends/family said I would change my mind someday, when I had kids of my own, but I didn’t. I still think abortions, like wars, are best avoided in the first place, and I’ve never had one myself.
(And on feminism….I never understood the whole bra-burning thing—why is it supposed to be “feminist” to put myself at the mercy of gravity? Why is it patriarchal to want a little SUPPORT?)

Posted by anna lisa on Tuesday, Sep, 10, 2013 7:30 PM (EDT):

Lisa, I grew up with a diminutive mother who pretty much ruled the household. She keeps us all on her maternal radar. She wasn’t the “nad” breaking, matriarchal feminist like my husband’s mother. She wears pastel sweater sets and lives to serve my father. He rants and rails about politics but she refuses to let the injustices of this world ruin her composure. She taught me from an early age that Jesus was the first feminist, and she is too. She’s never been the bra-burning-brand. I grew up in the seventies and eighties, so I’ve never suffered terribly the way women have in the past. I can see where there is still plenty of progress that needs to be made, but when I compare myself to women in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, I feel gratitude—and horror for what is still endured by women. I also feel gratitude that my parents modeled their Catholic faith pretty well, which gave me a foundation to form my conscience with. When I was still a teen, my parents became friends with the founder of Human Life International, Fr. Paul Marx. He would sit at our dinner table and tell us about atrocities around the world concerning women, abortion, forced sterilization etc. It horrified me, it appalled me. I didn’t even *know* about abortion until the seventh grade, because the topic was considered taboo. I’m still great friends with the mother of one of my classmates who brought in a film on abortion to my Catholic school. She was just some middle of the road hippy who made a stop at Lourdes, and experienced a powerful conversion about the nature and meaning of life. She faced a firestorm of angry parents for managing to pull off bringing in “The silent Scream”. Lisa, I will never. ever. forget those images of those bloody infants in buckets. It devastated me that humans could be reduced to such barbarism. As a feminist, I consider abortion to be one of the most pressing injustices that exists in our ever increasingly narcissistic, sociopathic, and pleasure fixated world. It tempts me to lose my composure.
Is it any wonder that men and women are less satisfied with life than ever? The statistics are telling. Peter Kreeft sums it up pretty well when he says that as we “grasp” for the light, we darken it instead.

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Tuesday, Sep, 10, 2013 6:18 PM (EDT):

Anna Lisa, I’m about as avid a feminist as one can get, but I love to wait on my partner, too. I just appreciate things like having joint title to our home, being able to vote for who I want instead of whom he tells me to vote for, etc.
And people in real life often aren’t as strident as they are when they espouse certain topics on blogs. I should know, since I apparently come across as a sociopath at times.
I’ve seen the testicles/nurturing article all over Twitter—things like, “Smaller ‘nads, better dads!”

Posted by mrscracker on Tuesday, Sep, 10, 2013 12:17 PM (EDT):

anna lisa,
Maybe so, that’s a good question…
:)
I know it’s an odd article, but since the conversation was turning towards paternalism, why not?

Posted by anna lisa on Tuesday, Sep, 10, 2013 11:55 AM (EDT):

mrscracker “who knew?” :) I’m off to read the article and am wondering if they inflate and deflate depending on what’s on the agenda.

Posted by anna lisa on Tuesday, Sep, 10, 2013 11:50 AM (EDT):

I’m imagining that if he talks to women in person the way he talks to them in a com box…well uh…I don’t think the docile type would even be up for that after the first date.
Consider this an *intervention* Ham, not a shaming session. Today just might be the first day of the rest of your life.
You’re welcome.
p.s. I *love* to wait on my husband; the whole works: A to Z. It’s a borderline sin because I practically worship him.

Posted by mrscracker on Tuesday, Sep, 10, 2013 9:25 AM (EDT):

Who knew?

“A link between the size of a father’s testicles and how active he is in bringing up his children has been suggested by scientists.

Researchers at Emory University, US, said those with smaller testicles were more likely to be involved with nappy changing, feeding and bath time…..We know, for instance, that testosterone levels go down when men become involved fathers,” said Dr Rilling.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24016988

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Tuesday, Sep, 10, 2013 7:33 AM (EDT):

Oh, I just remembered a quote I was trying to remember earlier!
Dr. John Henrik Clarke: “To hold a people in oppression you have to convince them first that they are supposed to be oppressed.”
So, Ham, you’ve just got to convince womenkind to agree with what you said, that the loss of patriarchy will wreck the world. Good luck with that.

Are we even on the same page here? Merriam Webster: “patriarchy 1: social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power.”

You’re really saying women’s “legal dependence” on men is a GOOD thing?

I’m not imagining Ham as being divorced/broken-hearted at all. I’m imagining him with a woman who enjoys depending on him. Some do—and that’s fine. There is nothing wrong with relationships like that, with the consent of both parties. It’s when ALL women are legally compelled to be second-class citizens to ALL men that I object to patriarchy on principle. And I refuse to believe that the attitude of ALL men—or even most—is, “Unless you let us make all the rules, all the time, we’re not gonna play.”

Posted by Ham Solo on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 9:21 PM (EDT):

I’ll rephrase to clarify what I mean because I can see how you misunderstood:
You saying, “Poor little Miley” is an iteration of you saying “We women are gonna do whatever we want and somehow the men are gonna make it work.”
It’s not a reference to all women everywhere. Or any woman anywhere.
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Miley Cyrus isn’t a victim anymore than Robin Thicke is a victim. She’s an exploiter, same as him.
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I don’t think I’m throwing stones and I’m not full of glee. That’s a pretty heavy accusation. I think your shaming instinct is in hyperdrive. You should stop now.

Posted by anna lisa on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 7:41 PM (EDT):

Ham, that’s the difference between you and me: I pity a girl who would be reduced to exploiting herself so horribly. I try to keep my contempt in check. You are full of glee as you examine your pile of stones, making ludicrous assertions as if Miley is representative of all women everywhere. At this point I care very little about your misogyny but I am a little curious about what kind of women have been in your life. You are so cynical and bitter.

Posted by Ham Solo on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 6:03 PM (EDT):

@Anna Lisa
No and no and yes you did.

Then trust me its not poor little Miley any more than its poor little Robin Thicke. “Poor little Miley” is an iteration of “We women gonna do whatever we want and somehow the men are gonna make it work.”

@GregB
“I don’t see how you can say this in the face of all the recent Wall Street speculative bubble markets that have damaged the economy of the last decade or so. Male virtue seems to be an endangered species on Wall Street. In light of this I could never say what you said and keep a straight face.”

More like the last 30 years and counting according to the book I’m reading. The next bubbles to burst will be the government debt bubble and the dollar bubble. Which will allow the other bubbles to finish popping. Things are going to get a lot worse.
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I can say it with a straight face because there’s no moral value attached to “principles” in that context. It’s just a description of behavior. See if you can spot the shaming attempts in Anna Lisa’s comments as opposed to the principle-based approach in yours.

Posted by GregB on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 4:50 PM (EDT):

Ham wrote:
*
Admittedly I think men do a LOT better than women in running society in general. Because they operate more by principles than by consensus and shame.
*****************************
I don’t see how you can say this in the face of all the recent Wall Street speculative bubble markets that have damaged the economy of the last decade or so. Male virtue seems to be an endangered species on Wall Street. In light of this I could never say what you said and keep a straight face.

Posted by anna lisa on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 2:21 PM (EDT):

You wrote:“We women gonna do whatever we want and somehow the men are gonna make it work.”.
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Nope. None of the women said that here. I didn’t watch poor little Miley’s performance either, as you so clearly did.
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You like to put words in people’s mouths so you can justify why you disrespect them. This would make any kind of relationship break down over time. To be specific it’s called mental abuse.

Posted by anna lisa on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 11:27 AM (EDT):

Ham Solo, are you divorced? Do you have children?

Posted by Ham Solo on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 11:19 AM (EDT):

I mean the patriarchal system was imposed on men by men. Women lost sexual autonomy and gained a protector/provider. Men lost freedom and leisure and gained a family.

Posted by Ham Solo on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 11:04 AM (EDT):

@Lisa
Wants and desires aren’t a mechanism. Desire exists in every society.
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Yes, those problems are everywhere. They’re mitigated more in some places than others by the slowing inertia of patriarchy. I can think of two recent divorces of people I know that wouldn’t have happened under patriarchy. The kids involved will likely fair better than ghetto kids and will probably become fairly decent citizens, because they have good influences in their lives and money. But there is a good chance they will have more problems than kids with both parents. There’s a greater chance they will divorce if they marry someday. The effect is cumulative.
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The poor were better off in general under patriarchy because families remained intact. Society as a whole was better off because children from father/mother families are better socialized and become good citizens. Course your grandma could have had an unusually bad experience, but wouldn’t change the overall trend.
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This mechanism is patriarchy without the patriarchy. The leaves are green for a while, but the tree’s cut off at the root. The instinct of women to provide for their children is why matrilineal anarchy is a default machanism. That’s not how it is for men. Patriarchy is a construct, an invention, that turned out to benefit men and women both enormously through history. History itself, written language, is a result of patriarchy.
.
Course I’m not saying we’re bound to end up in precivilization again. There’re a lot of influences pulling in different directions. The Catholic Church for example is a huge bulwark against anarchy. And with its all male hierarchy and at least nominal support for patriarchy it could produce a lot of good social capital to hand down. I don’t care if some women want to work or work from home or whatever. And honestly a society with a solid patriarchal base can absorb quite a bit of deviation from the norm. But binding fathers to children (in a better way than child support and threats of jail time) and therefore to the children’s mother who is naturally attached to her kids already (aka marriage), is my basic understanding of patriarchy. Admittedly I think men do a LOT better than women in running society in general. Because they operate more by principles than by consensus and shame. But that’s not really what I mean by patriarchy.

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 12:21 AM (EDT):

Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think Ham is arguing solely in favor of intact nuclear families. He’s arguing in favor of a patriarchal society, with men in charge. Different.

Posted by GregB on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 12:17 AM (EDT):

I don’t necessarily agree with some of the ways that Ham phrases things, but intact nuclear families generally have a better track record than many of the alternatives. The inner city experience does give some credence to what Ham says about the nature of some unattached single men. Your suggestions require a certain resource availability to be able to develop a child’s abilities. Education costs money. College has gotten so expensive that many students graduate with crushing debt loads. Most of the newspaper articles that I read say that the up and coming generations of students are facing a very tough job market. Some of them are having to take jobs that have nothing to do with their field of study in college.

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Monday, Sep, 9, 2013 12:04 AM (EDT):

You “discredited” nothing. Individuals want things—different things. These desires are the mechanism.

Sure, the inner city problems are “matrilineal anarchy by definition.” But do you see these problems happening everywhere? I sure don’t. And I don’t think poor families were any better off under the patriarchy, a few generations age. My grandmother’s horror stories about growing up poor in an era with few options for working-class women make me glad I wasn’t born back then.

Why does anyone work, anyway? Why do I work myself? Mostly, it’s because I like it—and I can also provide for my family by doing it. I imagine this is exactly why most men work, too. So this mechanism is gender-neutral, it’s already in place, and it’s already moving.

Posted by Ham Solo on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 11:46 PM (EDT):

Exactly. The “ghetto” is matrilineal anarchy by definition.

Posted by Ham Solo on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 11:37 PM (EDT):

Discredited it:
“Your utopia doesn’t have a mechanism to make it happen. That’s why it won’t happen. Patriarchy is a mechanism that creates the nuclear family and turns men into work horses, matrilineal anarchy is a default mechanism that produces children and scratches out a living for them and makes men lazy. Your utopia seems like a possibility because we’re still coasting on the inertia of patriarchy but that is slowly tapering off.”
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Anyway, you said the end of patriarchy wouldn’t lead to matrilineal anarchy, so I’m asking what’ll it lead to? Please don’t describe a feature of your dream society again (“a society in which…”) but give the organizing principle, the mechanism.
.
Course you’re right there’s a spectrum between work horse and lazy, hence the “tapering off.” And there’re always few hard workers in a lazy society and a few lazy bums in a hardworking society. We’re talking trends here.

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 11:18 PM (EDT):

And a return to the wonderful patriarchy would solve all of those problems? Why not foster nuclear families in which (here I go again) each individual’s role and opportunities are determined by his/her abilities and preferences?

Posted by GregB on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 11:14 PM (EDT):

Lisa you might want to give more thought to what Ham says. Have you ever bothered to study the many social pathologies of the high crime inner city neighborhoods? These neighborhoods are top heavy with single parent, out of wedlock, households. The neighborhood gangs are the dysfunctional surrogate for the nuclear family. Economic trends in America are not encouraging. Most of the recent recessions have had largely jobless recoveries, and most of the jobs created are low wage service sector jobs. If theses trends continue how long will it be before America is one big inner city from sea to shining sea?

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 10:04 PM (EDT):

I already gave my alternative: a society in which each individual’s role and opportunities are determined by his/her abilities and preferences. You already dismissed it, remember? Wow, you have a short memory.

Posted by Ham Solo on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 9:59 PM (EDT):

“Some of us out here think the end of the patriarchy is a very good thing, and don’t believe it will lead to either a matriarchy or some dystopian “matrilineal anarchy.”

Yeah you already said that. Remember? Then I asked for an alternative and you were amazed how much I knew about you from one post, and then you expressed some warmnfuzzy feelings which were completely discredited. Remember?

I already know I’m free to believe in facts.

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 9:31 PM (EDT):

You know, I think you’re falling into the same trap of which the original post warns us: “The Allure of Either/Or.” In your case, it’s either patriarchy, and male-headed families—or else it’s a world where men “mostly hang out in the sun and drink beer and gamble and get women pregnant.” One or the other, either/or, take your pick! Only somebody who fears something worse will pick a bad alternative, particularly if presented with no other options.
Some of us out here think the end of the patriarchy is a very good thing, and don’t believe it will lead to either a matriarchy or some dystopian “matrilineal anarchy.” But you’re free to believe otherwise, and do your part to suppress women for the good of society.

Knowing that you have gynocentric views is next to nothing, not a lot.

And it has already happened legally. Fathers don’t hve the primary right to the children. That’s really patriarchy by definition if you break the word down. And that’s what patriarchy was in the way back. A man got exclusive sexual access to a woman or women and in return was held responsible for her/them and whatever children he sired were his. He became a motor that produced like crazy instead of drinking beer, gambling and fornicating while the women scratched out a living. Everyone was poor. Today the children aren’t his and he doesn’t have exclusive sexual access—ie no-fault divorce. So naturally he doesn’t have as much incentive to work hard and produce, so the state has tried to mandate that he produce with child support and alimony laws. Won’t work in the long run though when the incentive is gone. Course people are still marrying and working hard and all that, but the downward pressure of those who aren’t is increasing.

Your utopia doesn’t have a mechanism to make it happen. That’s why it won’t happen. Patriarchy is a mechanism that creates the nuclear family and turns men into work horses, matrilineal anarchy is a default mechanism that produces children and scratches out a living for them and makes men lazy. Your utopia seems like a possibility because we’re still coasting on the inertia of patriarchy but that is slowly tapering off.

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 7:54 PM (EDT):

How about a society in which each individual’s role and opportunities are determined by his/her abilities and preferences? That’s the one in which I would like to live.
And wow, you seem to think you know A LOT about me based on a single blog comment. Amazing.

Posted by Ham Solo on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 7:48 PM (EDT):

Maybe not the flaming part but the gynocentric part definitely

Posted by Ham Solo on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 7:46 PM (EDT):

What would be another result other than matrilineal anarchy?

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 7:43 PM (EDT):

I would only rejoice, about the “loss of patriarchy,” and the end of the notion that all families ought to be traditional—but I disagree that it’s going to happen in our lifetimes. I also disagree that the only alternative to it is “matrilineal anarchy”—if so, why bother?
“Flaming gynocentrism”—mmmmmmmm, sounds like something they would really enjoy at a women’s college. But I don’t think it applies to me, or to most feminists.

Posted by Ham Solo on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 7:33 PM (EDT):

This is really the first time in a very very very very very long time that women have been able to opt out of patriarchy. Maybe in the future well be able to force them back into it but for now they gotta choose it for themselves. Patriarchy= the Family. Maybe well never go back to a time when women were forced to accept the advantages of patriarchy. Maybe this is further development of the human race by God. A deeper theology of women has GOT to address the family.

My point is huge and sweeping and about patriarchy and the end of the world. We don’t live in a civilized society anymore. You should stop taking that for granted. I don’t care how you or your daughter dress. I don’t think it’s a problem except for your flaming gynocentrism. For me the whole argument is about the loss of patriarchy and how that will wreck the world. I hope the Bishops figure out a way to get women to run back to patriarchy and androcentrism because the alternative is basically matrilineal anarchy. Which doesn’t turn out all that bad for men, really. We’ll mostly hang out in the sun and drink beer and gamble and get women pregnant. But it’s bad for the world and bad for civilization. And with the upcoming economic collapse it’s gonna get wicked out there.

Posted by anna lisa on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 1:30 PM (EDT):

There is a difference between attraction to another human being and lust. Heaven can be found in one, and hell in the other.

Posted by Eileen on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 6:29 AM (EDT):

Look what happened when these two teenage boys were checking out the lady in the next car! http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57601763-504083/texas-teens-jamal-harris-and-aaron-arias-rescue-woman-from-alleged-kidnapper-report-says/

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 3:04 AM (EDT):

Ham Solo, you have a very negative view of your own gender, if you’re male. What does “make it work” mean? I take it to mean that men will control their lust—not that they won’t feel it in the first place. We humans can’t control our feelings, but we can certainly control our actions on those feelings.
I suppose you think I’m part of the problem, because I’m one of those women who are “gonna do whatever we want,” and I’m raising my daughter to be one, too (and let me spell out what I mean by that: I dress according to my own definition of what is attractive, and what is appropriate for every given situation, and not necessarily to conform to some broad definition of “modesty”).
I expect not to be raped no matter what I’m wearing, and I think this expectation is reasonable in a civilized society. I admit I don’t particularly care whether men “fail” when it comes to (as Jimmy Carter put it) “lust in their hearts”—it doesn’t seem worth it to me to clad half the population in burquas just to prevent this.
What is your point, exactly? “Lust happens?” Sure, and we all live with it. So?

Posted by Ham Solo on Sunday, Sep, 8, 2013 2:29 AM (EDT):

I bet a major disconnect in this perpetual conversation is that men are often generalizing from principles, like Jacob, and women are often particularizing from their life circumstances, like Anna Lisa.

@Anna Lisa
Yes, there are particular examples of men who have mastered their tendency toward lust, but that doesn’t negate the general direction of men in society. A LOT more men fail than succeed today.

“Never-the-less, I still believe men are up to the task of being fully human. We didn’t come this far for nothing.”

Translation: “We women gonna do whatever we want and somehow the men are gonna make it work.”
Newsflash: They’re not. They’re going to check out more and more and turn into Miley Cyrus’s stage prop. America 2.0

Posted by anna lisa on Saturday, Sep, 7, 2013 11:23 PM (EDT):

Thank you Jacob. You know what? I’m going to e-mail this to my daughter. She is an artist-college student and has never lived in a conservative environment.
I can’t imagine anything more “scantily clad” than a two-piece bathing suit, but I just want to underscore for her what she is up against. Never-the-less, I still believe men are up to the task of being fully human. We didn’t come this far for nothing.

Posted by Jacob S on Saturday, Sep, 7, 2013 9:49 PM (EDT):

@anna lisa -
You’re absolutely correct. I most definitely was not trying to excuse lust in men, or say that because men are in some ways wired towards it that that makes it ok, or that the onus is on women to prevent it. It is my general opinion that it’s my duty to control myself, and any help anyone gives me is a bonus.
-
The only reason why I said anything at all was because a few comments seemed to go from the very true fact that there is nothing wrong either noticing or showing off beauty to the completely false idea that what men call lust is nothing more than an acceptable appreciation of beauty that we’re ashamed of for some reason. I just wanted to be absolutely clear that as far as the lust thing goes that many men struggle to keep it under control, and what they (we) are trying to control is not an innocent “oh isn’t she cute sort” of thing, but something that can be, when it goes wrong, very wrong indeed.
-
If a particular man struggles with that, then as far as I’m concerned it’s on him to control it, and if we can get help from women, that’s great. But what I don’t at all want people thinking is that the standard knee-jerk male reaction to extremely scantily clad women is the good sort of appreciation of beauty. As a general rule, that is not true. So if a woman decides to factor in how men will see her, she should know what it is that happens when a man sees her.
-
And if she’s going to dress how she’ll dress, and just say that we can deal with it (which is not something that I’m saying that women in general or any woman in particular does - just an extreme case example), then I’m ok with that too - I just think it best that we be clear on what exactly it is that is or is not being factored into the decision.

Posted by anna lisa on Saturday, Sep, 7, 2013 6:44 PM (EDT):

Ham and Jacob, I debated whether or not to say anything back. I have six sons. Two of them are in their twenties and two are teens, I was 21 when I had the first. They don’t spare me their male banter, but they also call each other out and put each other down when they catch each other making a misogynist statement. They think it’s funny hahahaha if they can make my head spin around a couple of times, but I almost always know when they are baiting me.
I’ll get to the point. I don’t believe in the “men will be men” argument about how males see women in bathing suits or yoga pants—you know why? Because I have a strapping, extremely manly-man husband who has explained exquisitely to me how the whole thing goes down. He didn’t conquer the beast from square one! As a friend once told me: “Lust is like a dirty little marble that you guard jealously in the deepest part of your pocket.” That dirty little marble is a counterfeit of the Pearl of Great Price. It casts a long shadow on that man, no matter how well it is hidden—estranging him from God. Or as my husband puts it: “there is nothing on this planet worth substituting God for.”
My husband appreciates beauty. I can comfortably admire a beautiful woman or man or child with him because looking wrongly at another human being has absolutely NO PLACE in the life of a Christian.

Posted by anna lisa on Saturday, Sep, 7, 2013 6:12 PM (EDT):

Maggie, I never ever thought having a teenaged girl, and navigating the whole clothing thing would be so tough. The only sex talk I ever got from my Mom was never. What I simply love though is that my daughter trusts me to come talk about anything, but I had to force myself to get past the awkwardness and just dive in with as much honesty as possible, then it got easier. Frankly, I let her wear a bikini. I think it would be more damaging to her psychologically to be the weird girl with the one piece and the shorts over it. She would have had to start sneaking other attire behind my back, and that would be damaging too—not to mention how it would have turned out to be the iron-fisted Momzilla. We live on the beach and not a single teen wears anything but a two piece. I wish things were different. I tell her what a stunningly beautiful body she has, and she does! It brings tears to my eyes! But yes, I’m never at ease with the whole college girl attire thing. I’m happy that she has very good taste in clothing.

Posted by anna lisa on Saturday, Sep, 7, 2013 5:56 PM (EDT):

Teapot, margarine is hydrolyzed oil, which is bad for your heart! The free radicals in it increase our risk for cancer too. Stick with butter :) My husband and I have been substituting butter for coconut oil on a lot of things, and it’s really good. Now, my four y.o. thinks butter on toast is yucky because she prefers the coconut. (If it’s stored in a cool place it spreads like butter) My older kids think I’m bad to let her drink decaf with it, but I serve it with a lot of milk :D

Posted by TeaPot562 on Saturday, Sep, 7, 2013 4:37 PM (EDT):

My preference for the brussels sprouts is fairly firm, cut in half and a dab of butter (probably margarine) on each half. I don’t know about “slathered with cheese”; somehow that combination doesn’t appeal to me.
Almost always enjoy your blogs.
TeaPot562

Posted by Ham Solo on Saturday, Sep, 7, 2013 1:24 PM (EDT):

Ah for Ham Solo the fairly genetically fortunate: getting dates=easy, getting dates with higher-end girls=some work (ie I’d have to give up my homemade cutoff shorts from the free bin at a hippie commune and buy new clothes), coming up with sufficient reason TO go back to dating=very hard.

Point is appealing to principles doesn’t work on a large scale. If we want girls to be more modest we have to give them practical incentives. We gotta make them ATTRACTIVE while modest so they can still get the male attention they want and legitimately compete with girls using the very effective immodesty strategy. Maybe it can be part of the new theology of women.

Posted by Pete McNesbitt on Saturday, Sep, 7, 2013 10:25 AM (EDT):

“We could both do better, and then we’d both do better.
It’s almost as if we’re in this together.”

Yes Simcha, you are in this enterprise of raising children together even with folding or not folding clothes.
Yours is balanced look at the world at hand as it is now, back when I was more involved with helping raise my then divorced brother’s son and daughter. We didn’t have the internet and screen shots to the extant that we do now. Hard to believe that was only fifteen years ago. Of course we both leaned heavily on our parents and other siblings for help in trying to raise kids who wouldn’t be so scarred by memories of severely alcoholic/abusive mother. The road was bumpy, and even after my brother remarried (after an annulment) it stayed that way for years. My niece and nephew are doing better now that they are in their twenties, and both living with their girlfriends.

One more wade in the @Jerry pool, Jerry if you make your brussel sprouts like my brother does with parboiling followed by baking I really do hope you add bacon in with a cheese that is not parmesan reggiano.

Deacon Miller, you jump all over @Jerry about how inappropriate it is for him to even try to talk about Orthodox Catholics, and then toss out the bon mot about judging others and then you CONDEMN him. You wrote:
“You can’t objectively condemn the behavior of modesty, so you come up with some false hypothesis about our motivation, by which to condemn us with. Why don’t you go over to the National Katholic Reporter - they’ll be more interested in your comments over there.”
So why not tell us again about who is Judging who and why you are more qualified to Judge?

Posted by Simcha Fisher on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 11:55 PM (EDT):

I am going to bed now, but seriously, if I wake up tomorrow to find another string of comments about how feeble minded and manipulative and underhanded women are (SUBTEXT: WHY CAN’T I GET A DATE???), I shall most certainly do something about it. Good night, and sweet dreams.

Posted by Simcha Fisher on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 11:51 PM (EDT):

@Ham Solo: okay, you’ve had your chance. We all get how you feel about the ladies. Say something new or you’re out of here.

Posted by Ham Solo on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 11:46 PM (EDT):

That kind of talk doesn’t obtain. It’s pointless. Because the truth is that women like being mildly objectified. They like that the tool-using part of the male brain lights up. So this is like warning a child that if his behavior doesn’t change he’s going to get candy, more and more candy if he doesn’t shape up.

Simcha,
People seem to think there is only one kind of woman and only one kind of man. In this matter I suppose you could divide each of the sexes into two groups. Women who dress modestly and women who don’t. A of course there are men who keep custody of their eyes and thoughts and those who don’t.

When we assume there is only one type of man, the type who ogles, then women naturally feeel offended at taking the blame. But there are good men out there, and women should want to dress modestly for the sake of the good men. Doesn’t a woman owe it to the man (or anyone else) who would respond to her cry for help to dress modestly while walking down Broadway? If we men are to build a culture that does not objectify women, it would be nice if the ladies weren’t running around undoing the work.

And guys it is not enough to not girl-watch. Discourage your buddies and colleagues from doing so.

One thing to consider if you are a single woman looking for mister right. If you are dressed decently among a party of immodestly dressed women there will be many men who will overlook you as their eyes are drawn to the tempting fruit. But there may be a man in the group who keeps turning his gaze in a frenzied attempt to keep his thouhts pure. When his eyes behold a woman he can look upon without frustration his attention will be on you all evening. Rest assured you have found a man worth getting to know.

Posted by Jacob S on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 10:41 PM (EDT):

In light of Anna Lisa and Maggie’s comment and similar, I think it’s worth pointing out that (crazy people aside) most of us aren’t actually saying that beauty is bad, or that women are somehow morally bound to hide it because it might tempt men, or that men noticing a woman’s beauty is bad, or even that the natural reaction that a man has to seeing a scantily clad woman is sinful (though this last certainly is morally dangerous).
-
Put it like this: I’m sure you’ve all heard of the studies that show that when men see scantily clad women, the tool using parts of the brain light up, and the parts of the brain that wonder about the human aspect (the thoughts and feelings) of whoever/whatever we’re looking at shut down. Is this sinful? Well, no, because we don’t cause it to happen, though if we aren’t careful it can lead to sin - because actually treating women like objects, whether we have a built in tendency to do so or not, is sinful.
-
And yes, it is true that times change and cultures vary based on what provokes this sort of reaction. And yes it is true that different activities require different modes of dress, and if some of those modes of dress are hard on males, well life is sometimes hard. And the people who say that, essentially, all women ought to wear burkas are definitely wrong.
-
But it is interesting to note that the current fashion trend that goes beyond showing that you have curves to explicitly showing the curves is exceeding the our culture’s men’s ability to see women as people. Normal guys in their low 20s will see a college girl dressed in a pretty standard college girl outfit, and make the a sort of comments that display a level of objectification that frankly I would be uncomfortable applying to most objects. If I see a tree, for example, I at least recognize that it has an existence in its own right, and that while I may use it to build something, in the process I am doing something to this tree. Normal comments among guys in these situations not only treats women as a means to an ends, but as a means that is only important for the sake of getting to the ends.
-
And that is not good. And yes men should fight it. And we do. With limited success. But it’s not about women’s beauty being bad, and it’s not about it being sinful for men to notice. And it’s absolutely not about men being ashamed of “natural” attraction to women, and projecting this shame on women - many women show their attractiveness without activating this “object” tendency in men.
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No, it’s about the simple fact that if a woman walks around half naked, then a man has a tendency to want to treat her as less than an object. Maybe if you had better men to deal with, then this wouldn’t be an issue, and you could do it with no issue (and certainly we should control ourselves whether you do so or not). But you don’t have better men. And we will fail, no matter how much we would like not to (that whole original sin thing). So it is unwise to walk around half naked when you don’t think the risk of being treated like less than a piece of lumber is worth whatever you may gain by doing so.
[/book]

Posted by Maggie on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 9:40 PM (EDT):

@Anna Lisa…thank you! I have a teenage daughter who picked up on this non verbal (NOT from me) disgust for her blossoming body and sexuality. Fortunately, she had the guts to talk it over in great detail with our wonderful priest who set her straight. I had no idea she was carrying this burden until she told me about it later. I am so, so glad she didn’t suffer in silence and now feels confident and beautiful inside her skin.

I’ve been really trying to teach my daughter how to find her own individual style and how to dress properly for different activities. There is a time and place for a swimsuit, jogging attire, jeans/t-shirts, mass clothes, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with showing you have curves, but leave something to the imagination.

In my opinion there is nothing sinful about having an honest chemical physical response to another person you see in the store, on the street or even at mass. But where do you go with it? Do you direct your thoughts elsewhere or do you let the thoughts linger and build and begin to fantasize? Or even more importantly, do you project your OWN issues onto that other person and get angry at THEM for causing your biological response?

I honestly feel I spend more time talking with my daughter about the dangers associated with dating/marrying a we should all dress like Mother Mary Catholic than I ever have regarding normal attraction from just your average guy.

@Beccolina…Yes..exactly!

Posted by TomD on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 7:25 PM (EDT):

Approaching the complexities of life with an either/or perspective is natural (and necessary) for many people . . . pick the “either” that you are comfortable with and ignore or dismiss the “or” that makes you uncomfortable or is unfamiliar.

The classic Christian both/and . . . love the sinner, despise the sin . . . that most people reduce to an either/or. The “left” embraces love the sinner and minimizes or ignores despise the sin, while the “right” embraces despise the sin and minimizes or ignores love the sinner. As with most either/ors, we are called to both.

Posted by anna lisa on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 6:55 PM (EDT):

Ham, I really. really. hope that pole dancing never becomes an art form or an Olympic sport, but I would imagine that there are some extremely talented pole dancers out there. I don’t even think I’ll change my mind if they perform with symphonies in front of them. I’ll bet they do that somewhere in Vegas though.

Posted by Ham Solo on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 6:09 PM (EDT):

@Anna Lisa

But snark aside, I agree with you about 13 year old boys and guilt. I was raised very conservative Protestant and felt enormous guilt for what in hindsight was really nothing to worry about and ought to have been directed properly rather than condemned in very vague and misleading ways.

Posted by Ham Solo on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 5:38 PM (EDT):

Yeah obviously pole dancing isn’t an art YET. But someday future generations will look back and see that teenage pole dancers are ahead of their time and are just victims of evil, male beauty haters

Posted by Eileen on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 5:23 PM (EDT):

Thank you anna lisa! You and Beccolina have said it all.

Posted by anna lisa on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 5:06 PM (EDT):

I’ll bet polite girls from nice families didn’t become ballerinas a couple of centuries ago. In fact they were probably forbidden to attend ballet performances at all. If you think about it, ballet is pretty erotic. Especially since upper class women always wore voluminous skirts to the floor. Imagine what it did to the male brain to see a woman on point, with her other leg straight up in the air, and in a fluffy tutu no less. It’s not *so* far off from the modern pole dancer is it? (No, I don’t consider this an art!)
Do we hear of priests or righteous mothers condemning, or calling for the end of ballet dancing? No. We changed our perspective. We somehow managed to find classical beauty in it, and moved on to other fixations and hang ups to gutter up our brains with.
What do you think it does to a poor 13-year-old girl who is told wordlessly, but constantly, that her blossoming body is dangerous and somehow bad? How will she then perceive other young women who weren’t forced to wear counter cultural clothing as she was? How will she approach her marriage bed? What does it do to the brain of the 13-year-old boy who has the same message communicated to him? What will happen to him when he is told that the natural attraction he has for females is lust, and therefore a sin?
How strange to think that one of the most beautiful gifts God gave us can become tainted and spoiled by religiosity and superiority complexes gone haywire. It must delight the Devil that he can wreak havoc at both ends of the spectrum, bringing a little extra hell on earth than needed to be here.

Posted by CJ Wolfe on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 4:15 PM (EDT):

The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote a book called “Either-Or” that is very germane to this discussion. As a follower of Thomas Aquinas, I fundamentally disagree with Kierkegaard’s idea that we choose “Either-Or” with no real reason behind it, but his book is still an interesting exploration of that idea

Posted by Deacon Jason Miller on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 4:14 PM (EDT):

Jerry, I find your entire post offensive. You are indeed a bigot, making prejudiced and stereotyping comments about Orthodox Catholics. You’re not raising children, so this is not something you have to contend with. Our concern is not about sexual arousal, but about their dignity - because we don’t want them to be objectified or pin their whole self-image to how much skin they show. I think it is VERY interesting that you, who believe you are not obsessed with sex, immediately took the view that WE are, rather than being able to understand we are merely concerned about the dignity children. This is what the whole, “thou shalt not judge” deal is about. You are making incorrect judgments about our motivations, then erroneously making moral condemnations. You can’t objectively condemn the behavior of modesty, so you come up with some false hypothesis about our motivation, by which to condemn us with. Why don’t you go over to the National Katholic Reporter - they’ll be more interested in your comments over there.

Posted by CD on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 4:01 PM (EDT):

@Eileen - My guess is that those bloggers are simply responding to the secular media and culture. I would have to know what blogs you’re reading to state a further opinion. Sorry that you seem to get stuck with them. X/ I think discussion of sexual sins in general may be more widespread than discussion of other sins because it’s something almost everyone is going to encounter. In a room of people, only a handful may have an obsession with extreme wealth, but everyone in the room has to, at some point, go through puberty and learn about their organs, etc. That being said, those bloggers in particular may or may have family who struggle with respect to this issue. Rather than working through it themselves, they want other people to take the responsibility. So in that respect, I understand you being fed up with them.

——
Aside: I find it ironic that the captcha for this is “her12”. And I don’t mind brussel sprouts. In fact, cheddar cheese with them sounds okay.

Posted by Ham Solo on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 3:48 PM (EDT):

On the other hand it’s obvious what men are viscerally attracted to. And I know some very traditional formerly homeschooled girls who mainly want to be traditonal stay at home wives and moms and who have pretty specific interests when it comes to men. Humility and service don’t figure highly in elevating their heart rates and shortening their breath any more than plain modesty and shyness does for men. So we have idealism and logic but “reason should be silent when experience gainsays its conclusions.” If they want girls to be more modest they should teach them how to be attractive while modest. Which means amping up cuteness, scaling back assertiveness and challengingness, growing their hair long, touching the arms and chests of men they want to attract, etc. Most modest girls I know are usually clueless. And those who aren’t clueless usually, their modesty is inversely proportional to their knowledge.

“The world doesn’t work that way.” You have to respect people who aren’t respectable. You have to do the right thing even when you won’t be respected for it. It’s not either/or. It’s not “won’t/until.” It’s both/and – and yes, that leads to everyone being a little bit dissatisfied. It leads to some people doing more work than others, and some people reaping rewards that they didn’t personally earn.” I was struck by the similarity found in Ms. Simcha Fisher’s “The Allure of Either/Or” and Ruth Marcus’ “A System Out of Control” in The Washington Post September 06, 2013. Although the writers are dealing with entirely different situations (internet exhibitionism vs U.S. Naval Academy sexual assaults), both seem to coincide that “adequate structures [be put] in place – first, to protect the young people in its care, including from themselves; second, to ensure that allegations of sexual assault are taken seriously and handled with appropriate sensitivity” (Marcus).
The need for proper education in this area that Ms. Fisher mentions in her article is most important, and last but not least, I would ask everyone to also take seriously the physiological effects of different hormones on both young males and females. Gonzalo T. Palacios, Ph.D., author The Virgin Mary’s Revolution, or Love and do what you will.

Posted by mrscracker on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 3:15 PM (EDT):

Is it just me, or are the brussels sprouts comments getting kind of graphic?
:)

Posted by Jacob S on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 3:14 PM (EDT):

@Jerry -
Believe me, it’s not something we choose. If I could rewire my brain so that the sight of a scantily clad woman didn’t immediately require me to start wrestling to keep my mind out of the gutter, I’d sign up in a heartbeat. As it is, I wrestle.
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And I’m pretty sure that Brussels Sprouts were a terrible joke that some people took way too seriously. Some chef noticed that people will eat just about anything with enough butter and cheese (throw in bacon and it’s all over) and said “You know what, I’ll bet they’ll will actually eat anything that way. What do I have laying around to test that with… I know! Let’s try these little lettuce turds. I totally bet they’ll eat it.”

Posted by Old Geoff on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 2:52 PM (EDT):

Mrs Fisher, you’ve missed a vital point of Jerry’s post: not just cheese on Brussels sprouts, but cheese AND BUTTER (LOTS OF BUTTER)! Try it before you condemn (a soft cheese - even ordinary Brie - is best). Bacon is good with this, too (it’s not an either/or, just a question of what dressing suits your taste). However, the best way to cook Brussels sprouts is to parboil them, then deep-fry them in crispy batter… Keep up the good work!

Posted by Eileen on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 2:52 PM (EDT):

@CD - I’m not talking about the secular media. I’m talking about Catholic bloggers who seem bent on telling Catholic women what to wear and what to do. And it goes back to the same thing Jerry brought up - an unhealthy fixation on sex and sexual sins. Where are the columns giving strict Catholic guidelines to avoid the other six deadlies? And aiming all that helpful advice at only one of the genders is particularly bizarre and controlling.

Posted by Ona on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 2:30 PM (EDT):

It might be worth pointing out that women (and men!) still suffer rape and men (and women!) have lustful thoughts, affairs, pre-marital sex, etc. even among the Amish, the Orthodox Jews and the orthodox Muslims, where modest dress for both genders is required. Appropriate attire is a good thing and I support it; but the underlying problem - our sinful nature - is only truly repaired by prayer and (ongoing) conversion, not merely by having more rules, nor even by having dire punishments for transgressors.

Posted by CD on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 2:21 PM (EDT):

As a human being, you have the responsibility of protecting your dignity and the dignity of other people. I think alot of this issue could be resolved if people actually read what the Popes and the Bible says on these issues rather than touting it like they know it already.

First, reread the areas of the Bible that everyone says talks about this issue. St. Paul talks alot about this issue, and there’s the dreaded book of Leviticus which gives you some idea of how restrictive it seems God is. If you think you know it already, move to step two.

Second, read Theology of the Body by John Paul II. It’s one of the most enlightening pieces of literature and theology that I’ve ever encountered. Hidden within its pages are answers to questions about modesty, behavior, homosexuality, and the meaning and value of the human body and soul.

Third, you’ll need to start focusing on your personal life. While, as someone said, you can’t change the other person - and sometimes you can’t cut yourself off from them - you can address them politely, pray, seek to purify yourself, and leave God to do the rest.

One thing we can do is speak out against evil - often a requirement. Though with respect to this issue, I believe people are forgetting what the evil is. The acts of sex, of taking gold, of killing people (as we recall the Israelites did) are not evil in and of themselves. They are the meaningless movement of atoms outside of the psychological, moral, and spiritual contexts in which we find them. The sin, as it were, is determined by man/woman’s response when presented with an idea.

Taking examples from the common arguments:

If a woman (or man, though we’ll say woman for now) is presented with the idea of tempting men into sexual activity, then it is her sin if she chooses to do so. If that is NOT her intention when she dresses “immodestly”, then there is no cause of sin. If she is aware that it “causes your brother to stumble” (as St. Paul says), then it is up to her to make such choices as she believes would be an acceptable level of clothing - whatever that may be, whether it still be short shorts or a long dress.

If a man (or woman, though we’ll say man for now) is presented with the idea of viewing a woman in a manner that diminishes who she is as a human person (even if it isn’t sexually) and so damages her dignity from his perspective, then it would be a sin for him to choose to view her in that sense.

There’s more explanation on this in Theology of the Body. I warn you - it is a very philosophical thesis, and you may want to find a study guide to help. However, it will explain to you the beauty of the human body, and - if you read it correctly - explain why the clothes were taken off of Michael Angelo’s figures in the Sistine Chapel.

The body is beautiful, even and especially naked, if you see it from the right perspective. To the free man (meaning any human), there is nothing that can tempt him for he sees things as they really are and can choose not to give into temptations (including seeing things from a perspective that devalues human beings, including himself). Hence, we can say that he is the end-all of his sin. If he choose to tempt, he sins. If he chooses to give in to temptation, he sins. He is responsible for his own sin.

I could end my post there, but I would, however, like to address some of the other comments.
The reason “sex” is such a popular topic is because it’s more interesting to the mainstream media and more of a controversial topic. If you think about it, sex is the only human activity that is (today) permitted in certain contexts and not in others where the line is drawn solely by religion. The media wants to erase this line because they don’t like religion. Slut, envy, greed - those are wrong in every context, so there isn’t a blurry line that can be played with. Eventually, however, those lines will be tugged and pulled at; but first the battle of sex must be won by the media. Sex isn’t the only blurry line being argued - digital “theft”/“sharing” is a blurry line as well. That topic is plastered on every tech blog, tech news, and art site I’ve visited. I see it FAR more often than topics about sex.
How frequently you see something depends primarily on where you look for reading material. Obviously then, with me, I see copyright law issues alot because of what I read.

Sorry for the long post!

tl;dr - Refresh your memory on the Bible and read Theology of the Body by John Paul II.

Posted by anna lisa on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 1:54 PM (EDT):

@Beccolina, Bingo.
@Eileen, I love it when you’re angry
...Small confession on my part: I met my husband in the 80s when I was sixteen. I had embarrassingly teased hair. We really talked for the first time at a beach bonfire on the fourth of July. Our next date was at a party. I wore a leather mini (yes I still remember). Our third was at a pool party at my house, I wore a bikini like all the other girls, and no, my parents didn’t like it… The whole thing kind of reminds me of those loopy birds in Madagascar that have crazy crests on their heads and that stick their bulbous chests out. They do a little dance, and sweep their wings around dramatically. The next thing you know, the girl bird is sitting on a bunch of eggs. God was smiling when he made that stuff up.

Posted by RichardGTC on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 1:40 PM (EDT):

*two

Posted by Katharine B on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 1:36 PM (EDT):

In the Christian world boys and men are advised all the time to be chaste, respectful of women, to be modest etc.. No one gets all riled up about it because it’s just not as offensive to modern minds to tell men these things than it is to tell a woman to cover up.

Immodesty of women is a serious issue even among devout Christians, and it is something that needs to be brought up again and again until it gets through our thick heads! Get over it and put some clothes on!

Posted by RichardGTC on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 1:31 PM (EDT):

Then Pope Benedict used that image of mountain climbing, you know, the mountaineers have ropes to keep each other from falling off of the mountain. We are and will be tempted. Do we deserve to be tempted? I guess those to nuts, Adam and Eve, earned for us that we will be tempted.

Posted by FD on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 1:29 PM (EDT):

While parents aren’t looking, children are learning how to dress, speak and behave from television. Television is looking to shock, without which there is no story. That’s why it gets worse every year. And so, if you give your children MTV (or any other channel/show popular with kids), they’re going to need abortion to go with it.

Back in college I took a life drawing class. For those who don’t know, that’s drawing nudes from live models. The first thing you learn is to look at the nude human body in a non-sexual way. It’s a body, and it’s naked, but the artist’s job is to express the beauty of the form, whether it’s the very obese man, the 8-month-pregnant woman, or anyone else. It is training in looking at beauty, and I think we need more of that.

Posted by Mr. Two Cents on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 1:09 PM (EDT):

This is the job of the fathers. First, we ourselves as men, should hate the sin of lustful temptation enough to disparage the women who choose to expose themselves in lustful ways. Then, as fathers of sons, we should lead with example and teach our sons to do the same thing. And, as fathers of daughters, we should put our foot down and dictate to our children what they can and can’t wear!

Just think how much more modest women would dress if they received less attention due to more scanty attire, or if they actually felt less respected for it. It’s a viscous circle but it does have an endpoint: the actions of men. We can’t leave this type of thing up to women to control; they cannot do it. If women are going to receive attention (natural desire for women) and become empowered by showing leg and cleavage (or more) they will continue to do it.

I am the first to admit this is quite a cross to carry for a man (it’s not simple for us). But we all know what happens when we take up our crosses.

Posted by Lee on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 12:32 PM (EDT):

This is the part that rankled me the most:

“And so, in our house, there are no second chances with pics like that, ladies. We have a zero tolerance policy. I know, so lame. But, if you want to stay friendly with our sons online, you’ll have to keep your clothes on, and your posts decent. If you post a sexy selfie (we all know the kind), or an inappropriate YouTube video – even once – it’s curtains.

I know that sounds so old-school, but we are hoping to raise men with a strong moral compass, and men of integrity don’t linger over pictures of scantily clad high-school girls.

Every day I pray for the women my boys will love. I hope they will be drawn to real beauties, the kind of women who will leave them better people in the end. I also pray that my sons will be worthy of this kind of woman, that they will be patient – and act honorably – while they wait for her.”

STONE THE WHORES!!!!!

:)

Mrs. Hall, I completely agree that “men of integrity don’t linger over pictures of scantily-clad high school girls.” But if you’re raising your sons to think to give “no second chances with pics like that,” well, who’s doing the lingering?

Posted by Eileen on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 12:20 PM (EDT):

Oops - I doubled up on Covetousness/Greed and forgot Gluttony. That’s what I get from working off my middle aged memory.
.
Here’s Gluttony - Hey Gals! Stop cooking such tasty food. It’s making me fat.

Posted by Mike on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 12:17 PM (EDT):

In the scenario described, the girls are sending a message, intentionally or not, that says ” I am sexy and interested. Please look at me”. If the boys are successful at resisting the message, the result is to ramp up the message with even more overt sexual dress, language, and attitude.
Yes the responsibility is on both to develop a disciplined chastity, but the message starts with the girls. And I am the father of two girls. It is disingenuous for girls’ parents permit and encourage their daughters to dress as seductively and tempting as possible, and then complain when the effort is successful.

Posted by Eileen on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 12:17 PM (EDT):

Along the lines of advising Catholic Burkhas, I have a few more article suggestions for Catholic bloggers:
1. Pride - how about all you losers start shaping up so I don’t have to think so much of myself?
2. Covetousness - get rid of all your cool stuff so I can stop wanting it.
3. Lust - eh, it’s been done.
4. Anger - Stop provoking me you knuckleheads!
5. Greed - Ask yourselves why you keep devaluing the Dollar
6. Envy - Stop driving your new car around me. It really makes me not like you.
7. Sloth - Step away from your computer and stop reading this trash!

Posted by Eileen on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 12:04 PM (EDT):

@Patrick - what about the sins of lying, sloth, or gossip. Those are HUGE temptations. As are gluttony, pride and a few others. But are they talked about with the same passion and urgency? Nope. The one that really gets the Catholic bloggers going is the one that they believe entitles them to tell women how to dress.

Posted by Patrick on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 11:54 AM (EDT):

The disproportionate focus on sexual topics you find on the Catholic Internet is due, I think, solely to its commonness as a temptation. Very few Catholics are tempted to launch missiles at innocent people, and you probably won’t have to tell your kids, “Now, son, don’t bomb anyone or authorize bombing someone today, ok?” So the sins of immodesty get more articles than the sins of wanton destruction, though both are sinful. That it makes us Catholics look like neo-Puritans can’t be helped.

Posted by Eileen on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 11:43 AM (EDT):

You’re right about the left when it comes to political left Bill. However, I don’t see the obsession with sex - excluding the role of women, of course - on the Catholic left. And even most of the truly gender-role obsessed Catholic left have, I think, abandoned the Church. Or at the very least they’re dying off - see the median age of the Nuns on the Bus.

Posted by Bill on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 11:24 AM (EDT):

Come on Eileen (sorry)

It’s not just the right who is obsessed with sex. The left is enraptured with their pelvises too. Everyone is, to some degree. That’s why it’s such an issue vis-a-vis sin.

Posted by Christina on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 10:07 AM (EDT):

Coming in a day or so late, I’ll just say this article is dead on. Dead. On.

Posted by Cathy on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 8:53 AM (EDT):

Thank you Lisa! I’ve noticed during my adult life that the entertainment industry has moved from treating women as sex objects (80’s), to treating young women/teen girl as sex objects (90’s), to treating men as sex objects (2000’s). Young men need to know that just because they CAN go around showing off their six pack abs in public, maybe that’s not the best choice, certainly not where women/teens girls are around. After all, women have hormones, too, and we don’t need to be conditioned to treat men like meat either, erm, and. :-)

Posted by Lisa Twaronite on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 7:18 AM (EDT):

Don’t forget the other side of the coin: Boys need to be taught to dress appropriately, too, and girls must respect boys no matter what they wear.

My Facebook friends were split 50/50 on the mother-of-son’s post. Either, “AMEN!” or “BARF!” I was in the latter camp, mostly because the writer addressed it to teenage girls, and so I imagined her talking to my 16-year old daughter, and telling her she was blocking her on her sons’ Facebook because she looked too “sexy”—not wearing a bra, or with a pouty expression, etc.—and I thought, one person’s “sexy” is another person’s “pretty.” I thought, “I hope my daughter doesn’t date any of that woman’s sons.” Then I felt mean for thinking that, because surely, she meant well.

Posted by Eileen on Friday, Sep, 6, 2013 6:42 AM (EDT):

I wasn’t going to reply to this thread because of course it’s not an either/or. And to respond to somebody who thinks it is gives that wackjob some legitimacy. And I think we need to stop doing that. Some people’s ideas really should be marginalized.
.
But @Jerry - you’re singing my tune! Ever since Pope Francis has been elected, I feel like it’s brought out the lunatic fringe on the Catholic right. And I wonder about them - they seem so obsessed with sex and what women are wearing and doing that I’d like to know how these kookoobirds actually hold down jobs in the real world. How do they go to the grocery store? Attend their kids’ swim meets? Drive their cars in an area that might have pedestrians?

Posted by Simcha Fisher on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 9:57 PM (EDT):

@Jerry: This is the most disgusting thing I have read all day. Cheese on brussels sprouts? Ew. Just, ew.

Posted by Jerry on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 9:50 PM (EDT):

Okay, I don’t get it. I’m a gay male, and when I enter a shower or locker room full of naked men, I get about as excited at President George Bush I at a plate of brussel sprouts. Yet, you straights can’t even think about a woman’s kuchabara or a man’s wanky without thinking about sex. As a gay man, let me ask you straights, what’s wrong with you? I, as a gay man, can be surrounded by men with nothing on but their birthday suits and all I want is to get out of there. Yet, can any of you straight men have yourselves surrounded by naked women, or any of you women surrounded by naked men, without thinking of anything more than what you need to pick up at a supermarket? What is it, again, about you straights, especially you religiously-focused straights? Why can’t you all look at anything without thinking about sex? Why are all you straights so perverted?
* * *
By the way, I love brussel sprouts. Steam them to neo-mushiness and then slather them with butter and cheese, and yum-yum. That’s brussel sprouts, nothing else. I’m gay, not straight. I think about food, not sex, unlike you sickos.

Posted by Shannon on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 8:12 PM (EDT):

THANK YOU, SIMCHA!

I get so tired of the never-ending debate of who is to blame when it comes to modesty and temptation. It takes two people for this situation to occur. Sometimes it is accidental, but nevertheless, two people are involved. Therefore, if we all just try to be respectful in the way we dress and the way we view others (that goes both ways for men and women) then we would be much better off. Women can be immodest and so can men! Men can lust after women and women are perfectly capable of lusting after men! Both sexes are capable of both sins so it’s up to everyone to try to behave.

Posted by Salome Ellen on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 6:30 PM (EDT):

Thank you!!!

Posted by Jane Jimenez on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 5:06 PM (EDT):

Either - Or? All of life is neither…nor! It is personal. It is me, myself, and I…and obedience to Christ. I have nothing against the dialogue between the male and female approaches to these issues. If we are trying to teach and compel non-believers, it may serve a purpose. But as believers in Christ, it all comes down, at the end, to a question that lands at the foot of the person who must decide…how will I act…and how will I respond…to all of the temptations placed before me. Parents are not trapped in the either/or blame game. We must keep our eyes and our hearts focused. Christ lived in times when temple prostitution and child sacrifice were part of the culture. We teach our children…and we live our lives…as people responsible to the teachings and truth given to us by Christ. Nothing less. We live in an age of temptation. So did the people in the days of Christ. Jesus, when he was tempted by Satan, gave us the example to follow. We resist. We will never be able to dissuade “the other person” from sinning and tempting…but we can dedicate our lives to the narrow path. We can resist. We can profess. We can rejoice!

Posted by mrscracker on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 4:46 PM (EDT):

SK Edman,
Agreed, *if* he acts on that temptation.
Technically speaking, though, I’m not sure whether kids having that stuff in unopened attachments could still get into legal woes.And sadly, kids are sending that to each other all the time.

Posted by Dale on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 4:45 PM (EDT):

I have not had the benefit of any theological training, so perhaps I am wrong, but a quick glance at the old Catholic Encylopedia (published 1912) suggests that the issue isn’t one of modesty, but of chastity.

The two are related, of course. Both are forms of Temperance, which is traditionally considered one of the four cardinal virtues. The difference, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, is that modesty is concerned with avoiding pride and chastity is concerned with avoiding sexual temptation. In particular it notes: “Chastity is not fanaticism; much less is it insensibility. It is the carrying out of the mandate of temperance in a particular department where such a steadying power is acutely needed.”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14481a.htm

Perhaps the reason we, as Catholics, have lapsed into either/or thinking on this issue is because, for some reason, we have been discussing the issue as one of modesty, suggesting that female vanity is the problem. This framing of the issue is not only erroneous, it prevents us from seeing clearly the responsibility that both sexes share.

Posted by Rose on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 4:13 PM (EDT):

I read this woman’s post and agreed with it entirely, but you missed the part that got people upset—not that she asked girls to dress and act modestly, but that she illustrated her blog post with photos of her strapping shirtless young sons posing like strongmen on the beach. That was the double-standard part—I’d say if not for the photos there’d be a lot less backlash.

Posted by Laura on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 3:54 PM (EDT):

I read that article by the mother, and I think that she IS raising her sons to be respectful and to look at women as more than sexual objects. She’s just being realistic about it: the boys aren’t going to teach themselves.

Posted by SK Edman on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 3:45 PM (EDT):

mrscracker, I’m sure you meant there are hefty legal consequences if he *chooses to give in* to that temptation. Desire doesn’t have legal consequences. Actions do. :)

Posted by CSmith on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 3:38 PM (EDT):

Just yesterday had (again) the “You’ve got to live in the world the way it is, not the way you wish it to be” discussion with my teenager. Next time, I’ll try the “both/and” wording.

Posted by mrscracker on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 3:11 PM (EDT):

SK Edman,
Being tempted may not have the same aftermath as rape, but it can have hefty legal consequences if a young man is tempted to store those images on his computer/phone.

Posted by SK Edman on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 2:47 PM (EDT):

Well, mostly. But this:

“It sounds so bold and stirring to cry, ‘Girls should be able to walk down Broadway naked at midnight and not be in fear, because boys have been taught not to rape!’ or ‘Boys should be able to walk down a beach at high noon and not have to bat an eye, because girls have been taught to dress and behave modestly!’

...is a serious problem.

Dressing immodestly =/= rape.

Being tempted =/= being raped.

Tempting someone can be intentional or accidental. Rape is always on purpose.

Being tempted doesn’t lead to PTSD, a profoundly shaken sense of trust, possible physical injury, depression, and suicide.

Temptation isn’t used as a weapon of war to destroy both communities and individual lives war torn region around the world.

But other than, yeah, sure. :)

Posted by Beccolina on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 2:46 PM (EDT):

THANK YOU! I also have boys and girls, and the responsibility lands on both.

Posted by Rich in MN on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 2:43 PM (EDT):

It is interesting that error frequently makes its dwelling on the extremes of thought (e.g. the ‘either/or’ positions). Here in Minneapolis, there is an annual event called “The SL*T WALK” (“SL*T” rhymes with “hut”) in which women march to affirm their right to wear whatever they darn well please. This event is living, breathing proof that charity is the first casualty of radical individualism.

Posted by anna lisa on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 2:41 PM (EDT):

When my two oldest sons were about five and nine their aunt who was visiting from far away brought them both two really expensive remote controlled monster trucks. The boys were delighted. It was a shock when their seven year old cousin managed to sneak away with one of them, and ended up smashing it with a sledge hammer in a remote location.
.
I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t an element of covetousness in this whole “MODESTY” debate…
.
If *I* can’t *possess* that, than *you* can’t either.
.
Yes, we are all in this together! When I elevate the profound dignity of my neighbor, (in the distressing disguise of the poor!)all of society is elevated.

Posted by barbara on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 1:57 PM (EDT):

But Richard, what if I want to wear a toga of linen, but my neighbor can only afford polyester? Then what?!?

Great post. Both/and. It’s like you’re Catholic or somethin’.

Posted by richard on Thursday, Sep, 5, 2013 1:26 PM (EDT):

Someone had a solution that I read years ago. Go back to wearing togas as in ancient times. No. It really is difficult to not look at one’s clothing. We really are in this together.

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